Welcome to the inaugural issue of Proto, an annual, humanities-centered journal that will disseminate undergraduate scholarship from institutions in the mid-Atlantic region. The journal's title expresses its ethos. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the prefix proto- connotes something that is the "earliest, original; at an early stage of development, primitive; incipient, potential." At its best, undergraduate scholarship embodies all of these qualities. While it almost certainly constitutes scholarship at an early stage of development, it also has the potential to be original and innovative; the seeds of future thought often take root during the undergraduate years. We see this journal as a site for this process of germination and growth.